Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) Trading 5.3% Higher After Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Fastly, Inc. (NYSE:FSLY) shot up 5.3% during trading on Friday after Freedom Capital upgraded the stock to a strong-buy rating. The stock traded as high as $21.30 and last traded at $21.4050. 697,928 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 93% from the average daily volume of 10,260,518 shares. The stock had previously closed at $20.32.

Several other research firms have also recently weighed in on FSLY. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of Fastly from $14.00 to $27.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Canaccord Genuity Group initiated coverage on shares of Fastly in a report on Friday. They set a “buy” rating and a $27.00 price objective on the stock. Evercore began coverage on shares of Fastly in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $24.00 price objective on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Fastly to $18.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Fastly from $13.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Fastly presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.11.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Charles Lacey Compton III sold 9,313 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.79, for a total transaction of $193,617.27. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,063,945 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,119,416.55. This represents a 0.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Richard Wong sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.48, for a total value of $41,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 1,239,301 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,423,680.48. This represents a 0.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 274,529 shares of company stock worth $4,761,780 in the last three months. Insiders own 4.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fastly

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in FSLY. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. raised its holdings in shares of Fastly by 2,795.2% in the 4th quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. now owns 4,789,185 shares of the company’s stock valued at $48,754,000 after purchasing an additional 4,623,767 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP grew its holdings in Fastly by 100.5% during the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 7,031,952 shares of the company’s stock worth $204,349,000 after purchasing an additional 3,524,763 shares during the period. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. grew its holdings in Fastly by 3,941.1% during the second quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,329,006 shares of the company’s stock worth $9,383,000 after purchasing an additional 1,296,119 shares during the period. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in Fastly during the fourth quarter worth approximately $11,657,000. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased its position in Fastly by 14.7% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 8,339,234 shares of the company’s stock worth $84,893,000 after buying an additional 1,071,222 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.71% of the company’s stock.

Fastly Trading Up 2.0%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.46. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $18.30 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $18.76. The stock has a market cap of $3.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -21.58 and a beta of 0.34.

About Fastly

Fastly, Inc operates an edge cloud platform designed to accelerate, secure and enable modern digital experiences. The company offers a suite of services including a content delivery network (CDN), edge compute, load balancing, web application firewall (WAF) and DDoS protection. Fastly’s real-time architecture allows customers to seamlessly deploy software logic at the network edge, reducing latency by bringing applications and content closer to end users.

Founded in 2011 by Artur Bergman, Fastly has evolved from a pure-play CDN provider into a comprehensive edge cloud platform.